Telecoms provider Eir is hitting thousands of homeowners with higher costs for calls and broadband. Some consumers will see price rises of close to €100 a year.

Around 360,000 customers will be impacted by the higher prices, a spokesman for the company said. The increases are up to 9.4pc and will affect those with bundled services.

Eir put up its charges at the start of the year for existing customers.

And in May it introduced new bundles and higher prices for new customers only.

Now the telecoms company is again hiking the cost of bundles for existing customers, in a move that will mean they will be faced with paying between €5 and €8 more a month.

This will impact on those with what the company calls double play - broadband and home phone.

It will also hit those with triple play, which includes broadband, home phone and either mobile phone services or TV.

And quad play, which involves four services, is also going up in price.

Rises

An Eir spokesman defended the price rises, saying it was offering customers with bundles extra minutes on their voice allowance and additional destinations to the international countries that are included in the bundle.

"That extra value ranges from €8 to €23 per month," he said.

And Eir broadband customers will be able to get Eir Sport, which used to be called Setanta Sports, free.

The company said this would mean €300 worth of Eir Sport premium content for all Eir broadband customers through the Eir Sport Pack.

"We will migrate our existing broadband customers to the new bundles over the course of the summer.

"All impacted customers will receive a letter notifying them of the changes and customers have 30 days from receipt of the letter to decline the changes," the Eir spokesman said.

He added that any customer who had a question or query could contact Eir and it would work with them to find the most appropriate bundle based on their current spending and usage patterns.

"After these changes, our bundles remain very competitively priced compared to other offers in the market," the Eir spokesman said.

In April, Eir imposed monthly rises on 500,000 residential and business customers.

The higher charges applied to those on bundles. The cost of the average bundle rose by €3 a month, which works out at €36 a year.

Last week, it emerged Virgin Media is to drop Eir Sports from its cable TV platform at the end of this month after failing to agree commercial terms on a new wholesale arrangement for the package of six channels.